


Falling, Failing, Rising

by thedarkstrangeson



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: AFAB!Virgil, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Anxiety, Coming Out, Dysphoria, Emotions, Fem!Janus, Fem!Logan, Fem!Sides, Gay Pride, Gen, Panic Attacks, Pride, Trans!Virgil, Warnings for individual chapters in author's notes, cursing, lots of emotions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24725440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedarkstrangeson/pseuds/thedarkstrangeson
Summary: Being trans is hard. It’s panic attacks and dysphoria and nights of not knowing. It’s figuring things out and letting it knock you over, it’s understanding and trying so damn hard to say something but failing, always failing. But sometimes, when you make it through all the dark parts and you see yourself for who you are, sometimes when those words finally come out, sometimes… Sometimes it’s happiness. Sometimes it's love. Sometimes it's rising on unsteady legs and standing anyway. Sometimes, it’s pride.This is a Virgil-centric fic for pride month, featuring all of the sides portrayed sympathetically. It’s also got fem!Logan (Her name is Eibhlin, for pronunciation it is usually anglicized as Evelyn) and fem!Janus (she does not get a name change because Jan is just lovely like that). Virgil is afab and named Adeline.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. When the world burns, can’t I burn with it?

**Author's Note:**

> No additional warnings apply for this chapter, but please check the general ones!
> 
> Enjoy the angst, I'm super excited to get the rest of this thing out to y'all.

The week had been rough, to say the least. Adeline was definitely not thriving under the mountains of school work, and overall something had been dragging her down lately. That nagging feeling of discomfort, usually ignored during the times when life was good enough, was there in full force. She never understood where it came from, but it was probably fine. Something to be figured out later, after all this stress had passed. Right now, she was running late for school.

Addie shoved another notebook into her backpack before pulling on a black MCR hoodie, baggy grey sweats completing the look. She was a senior, she could wear whatever she wanted and nobody would say a word. They were all tired blobs in shapeless clothing anyway. 

The drive to school was thankfully uneventful. Addie had to admit that she probably worried a little too much about getting into an accident. That anxiety was the only thing keeping her from speeding to school, as she very nearly hated being late more than driving. Being the last person to walk into class in the morning just made her skin crawl.

Tossing her backpack over a shoulder, she strode quickly into school and across the quad, before arriving at  _ oh fuck its math. _ She had completely forgotten about the math test that morning, and it was about to bite back, hard. She tried to be quiet about opening the door, but she still felt the eyes on her back as the teacher gave instructions.

The test went horribly, to say the least. She couldn’t seem to get her brain to engage, and it just left everything looking like gibberish. By the end, she’d left three problems entirely blank, with several more besides that had completely BS answers. That, combined with this growing darkness sitting in her chest was leaving her solidly not okay. Even going to hide in the bathroom for a bit during the morning’s study period didn’t seem like it’d help; the idea of going into the bathrooms itself just made everything worse.

Instead, Addie withdrew further into her hoodie and walked to a grassy area near the back of the school where her friends could usually be found. At least they had seen her break down before, and maybe she could get there quickly enough to avoid this choking feeling, the breath beginning to catch in her lungs, the blurry eyes, but no it was already here and pulling out of this one was not going to be easy. 

“Adeline, are you doing quite alright?” said Eibhlin, turning away from her conversation with one of the twins, Roman.

“No, I just fucked up, big time, and—” she inhaled shakily, “Gods I just feel really terrible today and I don’t know why and I can’t do anything about it—”

“Hey, it’ll be okay, Addie, come sit down?” said Roman.

“No, I… It’s not alright and I don’t know why and please don’t lie to me, Ro.” Everything about her just felt gross, it wasn’t  _ right _ she just wanted to get out of here. She started looking around frantically but there wasn’t anywhere that felt safe and her eyes were wet now and—.

Eb caught her wrist, when had she come over here?

“Let’s take a deep breath, with me,” she said calmly.

As though it was even possible, Addie sunk further into her hoodie. She tried to breathe, but her lungs didn’t seem to obey. She let herself be led over to the grass, and they sat down. Addie was beginning to shake now, and her breathing wasn’t faring much better.

“Can I touch you?” said Roman.

Addie considered it a moment, before nodding and leaning back into his chest. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t— _ hic _ —didn’t mean for this to happen, I just— _ hic _ —messed up my math test so bad, and this morning was so bad— _ hic _ —and the world just isn’t right sometimes and” she continued to babble on, and Roman just held her. Eb signalled subtly to the rest of their friends as they came up to take it easy, Addie wasn’t doing super great right then. Janus nodded, before settling down with her book next to Eibhlin. Patton murmured sympathy, but just listened. Interjecting anything wasn’t helpful for Addie just yet. 

For her part, Adeline’s words were beginning to slow up, until she turned into that melted sadness puddle that these things always seemed to end with. Curled up, in a hoodie, feeling that black weight on her heart and crawling over her skin, and her hair too long and with a heat like molten wire, burning every place it fell.  _ Why me? Why does my body hate me? _

The world never answered.


	2. Fight the Transphobe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contains one of my favorite scenes of the fic (but don't worry there much more goodness to come. and angst. much angst).
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include all of the general ones, plus: slurs, violence, (graphic/descriptive) threats of violence, transphobia, injuries and descriptions of them, blood

It was a Friday. School was hitting the half-way point of the year, and, finally, things would be closer to the end than to the beginning. Addie was convinced that things would be an improvement once school ended, but it would leave only the summer between her and her friends all parting ways for college. But until then, she was stuck in this hell-hole. And this hell-hole had a particular tradition of club rush. Once every term, all the school’s clubs would set up booths in the quad and attempt to recruit new members. 

As she was the treasurer for Theatre Tech, it made sense that she had to be there. That didn’t mean, however, that she was happy about it. So that’s how she ended up sulking behind the club’s booth, just waiting for lunch to be over so they could all pack up and get off to class. 

The booth was sandwiched right between Speech and Debate(popular), and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance(vaguely present). Each were running their own spiels, GSA handing out flags, Remus performing a particularly gory Humorous Interp from his last tournament, and Theatre passing out flyers for their upcoming performances. Addie was content to pretend like she was busy keeping the booth’s poster from falling over, until a commotion at the GSA booth caught her eye.

There was a bit of a standoff going on, between one of the GSA’s face painters and another student. He seemed to be taunting the kid, but Addie couldn’t really make out the words—

“...do you think you’re doing, faggot?”

“P-please treat all students on campus with respect, it’s in the student handbook.”

“Well,  _ ma’am _ , you can shove your damn student handbook.”

This was… not okay. Addie really really needed to say something, to shut the guy up, didn’t he know that misgendering someone was just so  _ hurtful _ . Where did he get all that venom? None of these kids were doing anybody any harm. 

_ I will say something. _ Her shoulders tensed, and her breathing went unsteady.  _ Oh gods how could I possibly say something? _ But she  _ had _ to, this was  _ wrong _ . It was hurting so badly and she just couldn’t move. Something stung at her eyes, and she blinked but it didn’t go away. 

“And you know what? You can shove your whole fucking booth, too. We don’t stand for trannies in this school,” the guy said, reaching to grab at the club’s poster.

_ Please, can you just shut the fuck up?  _

And then there was another person on the scene, Remus striding over from the speech booth with a bloodthirsty glint in his eye.

“What did you say, girlie?”

The guy took a step back, almost involuntarily. “Stay out of this, or you’re just as bad as they are.”

“Oh, I don’t think I will, worm’s meat,” said Remus. He seemed to be bubbling with anger, dark and deep. But why did he care? Why would Remus, of all people, defend the gay club on campus? Regardless of his motivations, Addie could only watch, rooted to the spot, as Remus went on. “Back off, or you’ll find your kneecaps unpleasantly reversed.”

“I’m not scared of you,” said the bully, although he sounded far less certain now.

“Shut your mouth,” Remus measured his words carefully, “Or I’ll tear off your nipples and shove them up your nose.” He grinned, wild and frenzied for a fight. And the bully gave it to him.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the guy said, taking two steps forward to shove him. Remus was too quick, and sidestepped to grab his arm as he went past.

“Is that a challenge?” 

With that, they were on top of each other, Remus yelling out obscenities and clawing, biting, fighting dirty like there was no tomorrow. The other kid, although bigger, really had gotten in over his head. He spun wildly, trying to get Remus off of him, to no avail. Someone was screaming. Then, something red wading into the fray.

As quickly as it had started, it was over. 

Roman had his brother by the back of his shirt and was dragging him off. 

“I will peel your skin off layer by layer like an onion until you are nothing more than a bony husk, you bastard, you scum of the earth, go die in a hole and fester until even the vultures won’t touch you—”

He kept going, the words flowing, unendingly, all the way until the door to the office shut behind them and Remus’ voice was cut off from the quad.

Addie was shocked into silence, along with most of the students present. Remus getting into a fight wasn’t exactly uncommon, but that was the angriest she had seen him in a long time. Thank goodness Roman was around, or it was possible nothing would have been able to get him to stop. As it was, the kid lay bleeding out of deep scratches across his face and arms. It was like he had been mauled. In a way, she supposed he had.

Not to say what Remus did was right, but Addie was just about ready to punch the kid herself. The things he was saying, the purposeful misgendering, it just  _ cut. _ Deep. And she didn’t know why.  _ At least I’m not trans. I couldn’t bear to have those words thrown my way. _

_ Wait. _

_ Fuck, what if I’m trans? _

It would explain so much, it would hurt so much, it would be a blessing and a curse and everything rolled into one, and  _ oh no I’m spiraling how did this happen _ . 

_ Deep breaths, take deep breaths, get out of this damn crowd get out get out. _

She made it behind the booths, there was a little bit of an open area here and the pressure on her lungs let up, just a little bit. But then there was someone there with her.

“Addie?” said Patton, quietly. He reached out but she stepped away, pressing her hands over her ears because why did her name hurt this much? The pressure clamped back down and she was struggling to breathe and Patton did the right thing this time, he stepped back but he kept talking to her.

“Hey, can you look at me? It’s going to be okay. Let’s count, alright? Just breathe with me and count. In for one, two, three, four, hold it with me for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, you’re doing great. Let’s breathe out now…”

Patton kept up the steady rhythm and Addie slowly came back to herself, out of that dark hole that was far too easy to fall into. 

“Sorry, Pat,” she studied her shoes, trying to keep up the focus on her breathing.

“Aww it’s okay, I always want to be here for you, you know that right? I’m Patt-on call!”

“I—” she resolved to just let that one slide, “Thanks.”

“No problem, kiddo! But I think we might want to head off to class now, lunch is over.”

Sure enough, all the booths had been packed up while Addie wasn’t watching. It was disorienting, to say the least. All that was left was empty tables and a few drops of blood on the pavement.

Addie tried to put it out of her mind as quickly as possible.

They headed off to 3rd period.

She tried to breathe.

She couldn’t tell whether she was succeeding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am (still) @thedarkstrangeson on tumblr!  
> Besides that, next chapter should be out on the 18th.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The plan is to update every 2-3 days until complete, but we'll see how that goes.
> 
> I am @thedarkstrangeson on tumblr if you'd like to check me out over there.


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